The Turtle would be no mere diving bell tethered to the surface by ropes and air hoses. For all Bushnell had read during his studies, he faced the practical challenges of making the underwater boat work. Historians are not sure when Bushnell and his brother Ezra began construction of the submarine that launched in the fall of 1776 and became known as the Turtle. The college closed early and Bushnell went home to Saybrook where he continued to work, now in earnest, on building a submarine that would deliver his underwater mine or explosives. In April of 1775, Bushnell’s last year at Yale, news of the battles at Lexington and Concord electrified Connecticut. While still a student, Bushnell experimented with methods to make gunpowder explode under water, terrifying onlookers. Yale’s fine library included standard 18th-century scientific texts, so Bushnell had access to the best and latest information to support his own research and experiments. Once in New Haven, Bushnell studied religion, mathematics, geometry, Natural Philosophy–as exploration of the natural sciences was then called–and other topics of interest to a budding inventor. Although 31-year-old David was much older than other applicants, he was accepted and entered Yale in 1771. David sold his half of the farm to Ezra and studied to enter Yale College. His mother quickly remarried, by custom and necessity, and left the farm to David and his younger brother, Ezra. Still at home and unmarried at age 26, he lost his father and two sisters in a span of three years.
Yet, the son of a Connecticut farmer, David Bushnell, hoped to prove that creativity and inventiveness might win the day for the colonies.īorn in 1740 in a section of Saybrook that is now Westbrook, David Bushnell was the eldest of five children. At the time of the American Revolution, British military power surpassed that of any western nation.
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